“Bugger.”
“Careful how you put them back,” Ingeborg said. “They were all squared up.”
“Can you manage without the torch?”
She was working with the lighted screen. “I can now.”
He started collecting the magazines. They’d been in date order. Pellegrini was a stickler for tidiness.
“If anyone checks these for prints, mine are going to be all over them.”
“Mine will be all over the keys. It shouldn’t happen… should it?”
She was efficient and quicker than he could have hoped. He’d barely finished replacing the magazines in date order when she said, “Done.”
“Mission accomplished?”
She unplugged the cable. “Let’s get out before we celebrate. This is the point in the movie when the baddies arrive.”
“Our baddy is still on life support.”
“Don’t count on it.”
They locked up and were shortly on the road again.
“What’s next?” Ingeborg asked when they were clear of Henrietta Road and into Argyle Street. “Checking all this creepy material, I suppose?”
“Please.”
“It won’t prove he’s a killer, will it?”
“It will be strong corroborative evidence.”
“Evidence that he was interested in murder methods, but not that he put any of them into practice.”
“Fair point,” he said.
“He could be a fantasist.”
“There’s more to it than that, Inge. A significant number of people in his circle have died in the last two years.”
“Old people,” she said.
“Which makes it easier for a murderer to get away with it.”
“Why would he do it? There’s nothing to suggest he’s deranged.”
“I’m hoping the computer will give us a lead on that.”
She offered to take the hard drive home that evening and make a start. The least he could do after that was drop her off at her flat. Clearly she was sceptical that Pellegrini was a killer, but she’d miss nothing.
He had one more visit to make before getting home. Fortunately the Royal United Hospital was at Combe Park, close to where he lived in Weston. That remark of Ingeborg’s-“Don’t count on it”-when he’d mentioned Pellegrini was still on life support had made him uneasy. It wasn’t that he expected the man to walk in suddenly, but the reverse. He might already be dead.
“You can’t stay away, can you?” the caustic sister in charge said when he looked through the open door of her office. He guarded his tongue. He didn’t want another verbal punch-up.
“How is he?”
“No change,” she said, and then her face softened. “What’s the news of Hornby?”
Thank God for Hornby. The virtual cat was the sure way to open a civilised conversation here. “Settling in well, I believe.”
“He’s not with you, then?”
“People I know and can trust. I’m not at home much. It wouldn’t be kind.”
“His new owners should keep him indoors for a few days, so that he gets to know who feeds him.”
“I expect they’ve thought of that, but I can pass it on. May I go in?”
“You won’t learn anything new.” She handed him the pack of sterile protective wear.
“Is it any use talking to him?” he said as he slipped the disposable plastic apron over his head.
“Of course. He’d appreciate that,” she said.
“Really? Do you mean that?”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s a one-way conversation, obviously.”
“Not at all. They rub against your legs and purr. That’s their way of answering back.”
“Actually I meant your patient, not the cat.”
“Him?” She raised a smile. “You’re welcome to give it a go. We do, quite often. There’s a certain amount of evidence from people who emerged from vegetative states that they heard what was being said, even though they couldn’t respond in any way. It can’t do any harm, as long as you don’t say anything upsetting.”
“Trust me,” he said.
“I don’t know if I can. Don’t tell him you’re from the police. That would upset anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“Keep it friendly.”
“I will. I want to see him recover.”
Kitted in the mask, hood and apron that he was starting to wear like a seasoned medic, he went in. At least they hadn’t switched off the machinery. Technically there was a chance they’d save the patient. Pellegrini’s eyes were closed but his chest was moving perceptibly with the action of the ventilator.
Instead of a mask he now had a tube inserted into his nostril and clipped in place, so more of his face was visible.
The face of a killer?
Gaunt, pale, slack-muscled, with a silver beard starting to sprout, a reminder that not everything here was artificially induced.
Diamond stood watching, reflecting on the irony of all the equipment surrounding the bed, the various monitoring devices, the screens, drips, lines and pumps, the catheter, the feeding tube, sustaining life in an individual who may well have systematically deprived others of their existence.
In a long career, the much-tested Peter Diamond had never faced a situation like this where the main suspect was in custody, so to speak, yet couldn’t be interviewed. Even the “no comment” every petty crook learned from crime dramas would be better than silence. You found ways of getting past that. Here there was no serious prospect of communication.
No one could know for sure whether a brain was dormant or active.
Better give it a try.
Self-consciously, he took a step closer. His voice was muffled by the mask. “Can you hear me, Ivor? I’m Peter Diamond, the guy who found you after the accident. There’s a lot I’d like to ask you about what happened that night.”
And other things, too, he might have added.
Not a flicker of comprehension. Even the screens didn’t register anything different.
“I live in Weston, not far from here. You’ll know it because of Horstman’s at Newbridge, where you worked as an engineer.”
Horstman’s should have been a strong memory but it didn’t seem so.
“Everyone is hoping you’ll snap out of this, Ivor. Your railway friends in particular. Great Western Railway-does that ring any bells?”
Plainly it didn’t.
“County of Somerset was your GWR identity, wasn’t it? The name-plate over the door of your workshop. I was there this week. Met your cleaner, Mrs. Halliday. And a lady from the church called Elspeth Blake, who turned up with a nice quiche for you. Your domestic life is better sorted than mine. I wouldn’t mind a home care package in the shape of Elspeth Blake. But I was asking about your GWR contacts. I spoke to a Captain Jarrow today and he was telling me how a bunch of you broke away from the Bath Railway Society to form your own special interest group. Do you remember Captain Jarrow?”
If he did, he wasn’t going to show it.
“Not all your old chums know you’re here. We’re working on it, all your contacts.”
He waited a minute or so in case anything had penetrated the brain.
“If you don’t remember people, let’s talk about some things you got up to. The night jaunts on your tricycle. That disused station. What was it called? Now I’m in need of some prompting myself. Got it: Hampton Row Halt. The only reason I’m banging on about all this is to try and trigger a memory.”
He was scraping the barrel of his own memories now. What else could he mention that wouldn’t bring on a cardiac arrest?
“There are the rabbits digging their holes and covering big distances. We’re still a bit mystified about the rabbits. Some sort of joke, were they?”
None of this seemed to have registered. It was difficult avoiding the conclusion that Ivor Pellegrini was brain dead.
Diamond turned his head, just to be certain the sister wasn’t behind him. Out of devilment he said in a low voice, “And three gowns in your workshop, made by Fortuny.”
Was it wishful thinking, or did one of the delta waves on the nearest screen give the tiniest twitch?